May 2- 8, 2002

pretzel logic

Recovery Addict

by Howard Altman

I have this very odd habit (well, I have a number of odd habits, but those are stories for other days) of walking with my head down. I don’t know why I do it, but I do it, usually daydreaming about my oldest daughter’s future Pulitzer or Tony Award, my son’s first game at shortstop for the Mets, or my youngest daughter’s gymnastic scholarship.

The good thing about walking around with your head down is that there's some amazing stuff to be found on the ground. Aside from the usual assortment of coins (being superstitious, I won't pick up pennies unless I can see Abe's taciturn profile), I have found earrings, necklaces, a gold-plated lion's head broach and even a gun (which was the subject of a past column, about how I tried to turn it in to two cops sleeping in a van, only to be told by said officers that they were about to go off shift and that if they accepted the gun they would be stuck doing hours of paperwork, so thanks, but no thanks, give it to somebody who cares).

Monday evening, as I was walking home from the train station, I found something that was rather unusual, even by "walking around with my head down" standards.

It was a gold ring. Upon further examination, it appeared to be a wedding band, just lying on the sidewalk for who knows how long.

But who loses a wedding band?

The only time I took off my wedding band, which has been on my ring finger for 13 years now, was a few years ago during a percussion jam session when, after an hour or so of banging on a dumbek, my ring finger started to bleed all over my friend's Middle Eastern drum.

Many years ago, when I was living in the Boston area, I shared a house with a whacked-out Vietnam War vet who, though I never saw him with a woman, seemed to know everything about them. I remember one drunken night in particular when Rambo was explaining how you could tell a married woman was interested in having sex with you just by the way she played with her ring.

Could this be the story behind the ring I found? Did it belong to a married person with extramarital intentions?

I wondered about that all night into the next morning, when I called a half-dozen marriage counselors, hoping to find someone who could give me some professional insight about what significance, if any, there is to a lost wedding band.

Much to my surprise, I couldn't find many shrinks who wanted to talk. The only one who did, who works for Associates in Psychology, laughed nervously when I broached the subject and refused to give me his name.

"Being a psychologist, a ring is certainly symbolic," he said. "I have seen clients absent-mindedly play with their wedding bands when they talk about their spouse. The spouse is certainly on their mind, but I really can't talk about whether that has anything to do with a discarded ring. I'm the only psychologist here right now, and to try and put some kind of meaning to a lost ring, well, that is really stretching things."

"You mean sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, doc?" I asked him.

So much for psychology.

I may never know why the ring-loser lost the ring, but, like I wondered earlier, who loses a wedding band?

I called the police, to see if it had a lost-and-found department, and, if it did, whether it received many lost wedding bands. Stephanie McNeil, one of the department's friendly spokesofficers, said that no, the department has no lost-and-found. Then she wanted to know why I wanted to know. So I told her about the wedding band I found.

"That's so sad," she said, adding with a hearty laugh that "I would pawn it before I lost it. I lost an engagement ring before. Right after I broke up. But I didn't do it intentionally."

Steve Abraham, owner of Simpson's pawnshop, at 116 S. 12th St., said that while they receive all kinds of jewelry, they don't get many wedding bands.

"I only get two or three of those a year," said Simpson.

"I don't have anyone that loses a wedding band," huffed a woman answering the phone at McGarry's Jewelers, before hanging up abruptly.

OK, so the police and pawnshops don't find many wedding bands. But what about SEPTA and its buses, trains and subways? Surely, if anyone would lose a wedding band, it would happen on mass transit.

"Wedding bands?" asked Luther Chiles, SEPTA's service representative, when I asked him how often they turned up in lost-and-found. "Not often. That is a strange one on me."

Usually, said Chiles, passengers leave behind cell phones, eyeglasses, keys, the occasional laptop computer, wallets and purses.

"What's the strangest thing you've ever found?" I asked Chiles.

"Can I say it?" he asked.

"Of course you can. This is City Paper."

Chiles paused for a moment, then laughed.

"Super-sized dildos," he said. "I don't remember if anyone came back for those. We probably just tossed them out."

After laughing about the dildos, Chiles said he'd just remembered something, an odd coincidence.

"Today, there were three women who reported lost rings," said Chiles, adding that wedding bands are usually found "only once every three to four months."

Must be something in the air.

So if you lost a wedding band, give me a shout at 215-735-8444, ext. 208. Maybe the ring on my desk is yours.